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Liz & Dewayne’s Bridal & Pre-Wedding Portraits

I’ve been excited to share the images from Liz & Dewayne’s bridal and pre-wedding shoot, but wanted to wait until after their wedding. As you can see, we had a great time creating some wonderful portraits in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah using streets, textures, and pillars as out backdrop.

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This dancing image above is great as both a stand alone image as well as in this trio sequence.

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The long lines in these pillars really makes a powerful impact, especially mixed with this great kiss. BryCox_Liz_Dewayne_Bridal_06 BryCox_Liz_Dewayne_Bridal_07

These two really look great together. And having shot tons of couples over the years, I especially noticed that these two were extra thoughtful and helpful with each other. Something I had to comment on during the shoot. But that feeling really shows in the images and makes these all the more romantic and powerful.BryCox_Liz_Dewayne_Bridal_08 BryCox_Liz_Dewayne_Bridal_09

As the sun dropped low, the trees in the distance created some wonderfully abstract shadows on these pillars, but also let a pocket of light light through in just the right spot to highlight the couple.
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It made a great place to also do a portrait of just Dewayne.BryCox_Liz_Dewayne_Bridal_11

And to close, it’s always fun to shoot and design up a collage of the bridal details in black & white, showing enhances on the ribbons, lace, shoes, ring, flowers, buttons, and hair.
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I know you’ll want to see some of their wedding photos and I will for sure post some later. But in the meantime, if you’re getting married and are looking for some incredible images, give me a call at 801-728-3317.

If you want to do more research online first, then check this post out on how my weddings are completely different and unique. Plus my main website BryCox.com has a lot of great sample images and info too.

Until next time, America.

Creativity – A Summer Day with Adobe, Heber Utah

This summer, some friends and contacts of mine from Adobe’s California office had some meetings in Park City. They invited me along as a local tour guide and helper on their creative day of shooting, and had events scheduled that ended at the Heber Valley Railroad (aka Heber Creeper).

Here are some of my images from that day. I started out using one of my Lens Babies as I photographed the train yard.

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The colors were so vivid that day, and the selective blur was a great look I thought for the train cars. With older and nostalgic train cars, I thought an older lens look would match perfectly.

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They had lined up this model too, who came in this authentic conductor’s outfit. I think he was my favorite subject to photograph, and I created images with both a selective focus…

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…and a normal lens. His outfit and expression were perfect. I really liked balancing the converging lines in the background with him.

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Here are some abstracts from an area of the train yard that is normally closed to the public, but with special permission we were able to walk around and explore. It’s hard to explain how fun it is to crawl around in areas like this and just shoot photographs for fun.

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Cox_AdobeHeber-220 It’s always fun to get away and create new images just for the sake of being creative, and it was fun being with  photographer friends from Adobe. They really had a fun night planned and I am grateful I could be apart of it.

Until next time, America.

Bethany, Night Portraits in Atlanta!

I had a blast photographing Bethany in the city of Atlanta at night.  She was a beautiful and fun model who even had a few call backs with the TV show, America’s Next Top Model.  But besides having a fun and beautiful model, creating high-caliber images in this type of environment is very difficult on many levels.

However, it’s that higher level of difficulty that makes the entire shoot extra fun for me because I feel a surge of creativity when things are technically difficult.  That’s because I value photographs even more when I know that other photographers wouldn’t be able to create them standing in the same setting.  Therefore creating superb images in difficult situations makes the images all the more valuable to me.

On this image above, I love the play of warm and cool tones (warm in the foreground and cool in the background), creating a lot of depth and impact!

Shooting in a city is fun at any time of day because I have to create backgrounds from the environment, and make them balance and play with the subject correctly.  Everything in an image has to work for the portrait or else it works against it.  Most photographers don’t take into account how lines, shapes, and colors in a background affect the foreground subject.  But I am a stickler about the details and won’t take a shot unless everything looks great — including how the background interacts with the foreground.  I will continue to change my setup until things work.

But then when you add night to the mix of shooting in a city, you add another layer of difficulty — LIGHTING!  Lighting isn’t used to create an exposure, but rather to specifically sculpt a subject.  Therefore it must be used specifically!  It must come from a very specific angle depending on the model, despite any surroundings.  And at the same time light has to balance with the background in both intensity as well as color temperature to avoid creating images that are too dark, flat, or dull looking.  An image, even when created at night, should instead seem 3-dimentional and have pop!

So with that in mind, Bethany and I had a great time just creating images on this city block.  Her style was cute and fun, and we got a lot of variety.

I love this smiling close-up above, and this serious expression in the image below.  Both created in the same spot.  The vertical lines in the background above play off her angle and her soft hair, while the curve of the sidewalk in the image below leads your eye back to her and adds balance to the left side.

I really like the shadow of a the figure off camera in this next image below.  It helps create a mysterious mood.  It was created by some stranger walking by, and I liked it and waited to take the shot once the shadow moved into the open space of the image where it wouldn’t visually touch and compete with the rail in the foreground.

I used the effect of light color temperature to create different moods and looks throughout the shoot.  I love the color, the angle, and her expression and stance on this image below.  The hair softly blowing at an angle really makes this image work!

I ended the shoot with a light up close, sharp, and at a hard angle to create deep shadows.  The mix of vertical and horizontal lines of the background, and light and dark areas are all broken up by her pose — making it all work together beautifully!

It was really fun meeting Bethany and creating these images.  We had a great time and I hope that she does well in her career.

If you’d like to built your modeling portfolio or just get some wonderful fashion portraits, or perhaps if you’re a high school senior and want a fashion style session for your senior portraits, then give me a call!  NO ONE creates images like me!  My shoots are so much fun and I know just how to make you look great, beautiful, feminine, and sexy — without being risqué or cheesy.  And overall, you will LOVE your images!

Give me a call to schedule your appointment.  801-728-3317.  And feel free to browse my main website, BryCox.com and my blog at BryCox.com/blog.